‘Exacerbating the crisis, not managing it’: Basic services scarce in Moadamiyat al-Sham

DAMASCUS — Since the beginning of August, water has been completely cut off from the street Zahra Ahmad, 46, lives on in Moadamiyat al-Sham, a city just outside Damascus. To get by, she is forced to buy trucked-in water. 

Ahmad, who works at a private education center in the capital, pays 150,000 Syrian pounds a week (approximately $10 at the current black market exchange rate of SYP 14,650 to the dollar) to fill her apartment’s water tank. One 200-liter barrel currently costs around SYP 20,000 ($1.35), she told Syria Direct

Up until 2020, Ahmad paid around SYP 50,000 ($3.40) a month for water from the Damascus Water Supply and Sewage Authority (DWSSA), “out of the fear of bills piling up,” she said. She no longer worries about paying, given the ongoing water crisis in the city. “Even the water authority no longer cares about bill collection,” she added. “No water, no bills. 

The Damascus city water network supplies Moadamiyat al-Sham’s eastern neighborhoods for two hours every 15 days, and the western neighborhoods for one hour. When it comes, residents hurry to fill household water tanks for future use. But with frequent electricity outages and the short period of supply, it is not always possible to fill the tanks in time, several sources told Syria Direct. 

Moadamiyat al-Sham, which neighbors the Mezzeh Military Airport southwest of Damascus, was among the first cities to take part in the March 2011 revolution. On August 21, 2013, it was attacked with chemical weapons alongside the capital’s East Ghouta suburbs. 

That December, opposition factions in Moadamiyat al-Sham signed an initial settlement agreement with the regime, under which the siege of the city was lifted in exchange for settling the statuses of wanted individuals and establishing joint checkpoints. 

In October 2016, hundreds of people from the city who were not willing to enter into a settlement with the regime left for opposition-held northwestern Syria, after which the regime, with its security services and civilian institutions, reentered the city. 

Nearly eight years have passed since state institutions returned, but Moadamiyat al-Sham still suffers from poor essential services, facing power cuts, a water and bread crisis and poor public transportation to and from the city. 

In August, DWSSA head Issam al-Tabaa told pro-regime newspaper al-Watan this month that the water situation in Damascus is good and stable. In Reef Dimashq cities such as Moadamiyat al-Sham, which are served by the same network, the situation is “somewhat acceptable,” he said, attributing the water crisis to hours of electricity rationing. 

For residents, however, “the situation is unacceptable,” leaving them “completely reliant on water tankers that are unreliable, in terms of health, with frequent outages that last for days and sometimes weeks,” Ahmad said. 

Electricity crisis

Moadamiyat al-Sham’s water crisis cannot be separated from its electricity crisis, as outages prevent people from filling their tanks with water during limited supply hours. 

Due to power rationing, state-provided electricity is cut for up to 23 hours a day, arriving for one hour, according to Akram Zain (a pseudonym), 47, who lives in the city. “What is happening is exacerbating the crisis, not managing it,” he said

As a result, the city’s people rely mainly on “amperes” electricity from private generator networks, as is the case in most cities and towns Damascus regained control over following reconciliation and settlement agreements. Some also use solar panels. 

Ampere networks are “a good alternative to regular electricity, but there are many breakdowns, and it is expensive,” Zain said. 

Generator owners “manipulate” prices, while residents have to “look the other way to receive electricity,” Muna Salim (a pseudonym), 45, said. Some weeks, she pays SYP 25,000 ($1.70), while others her bill reaches SYP 90,000 ($6), while “using the same amount of electricity,” she said. 

In May, local ampere generator owners raised the fees from SYP 8,000 ($0.54) per kilowatt hour to SYP 11,000 ($0.75). The official price for licensed ampere electricity, meanwhile, is SYP 7,500 ($0.51), as set by the provincial government in February. 

Read more: Private generator networks expand around Damascus as state gives way to war profiteers

During years of war, Moadamiyat al-Sham’s electrical grid was largely destroyed, especially the transformers. When Damascus regained control, around half the network was repaired, as the head of the city council, Bassam Saadi previously told al-Thawra newspaper. Still, the problem of long periods of electricity rationing persisted. 

Bread crisis

A bread crisis coincides with electricity and water crises in all regime-controlled areas, and is worse in settlement areas. Despite the population density of Moadamiyat al-Sham—more than 200,000 in 2020—the city only has three bread ovens, not enough to serve the population.

Bread is in short supply, “poor quality and small,” Ahmad said. Rather than buying from official manufacturers, she sometimes buys bread from street vendors or has her son bring bread from neighboring Darayya. 

“The quality of bread varies between ovens in Damascus and Reef Dimashq,” Ahmad said. “The former is high quality, unlike the bread of the al-Zaytouniya oven in Moadamiya,” she added. Accordingly, many people sell bread from Damascus in Moadamiya. 

One seven-loaf bundle of bread sells for SYP 400 (approximately $0.03) through the government’s “smart card” at accredited bread distribution centers in Moadamiya, while its price on the black market reaches SYP 5,000 ($0.34). 

In 2021, Damascus set subsidized bread allowances at four bundles per week for a single individual, six bundles a week for a couple and 10 bundles a week for a family of five. These quantities are not enough in a country that relies heavily on bread, which increases demand for bread on the black market. 

Deliberate neglect?

Traveling from Moadamiyat al-Sham to Damascus, just a few kilometers away, by public transport requires waiting for a long time in queues of university students and workers. This has led to drivers’ “greed,” especially in the morning and evening rush hours. 

The servees microbus fare from Modamiyat al-Sham to al-Baramka, in central Damascus, is SYP 1,500 ($0.10). However, sources Syria Direct spoke to said drivers exploit passengers’ need in heavy traffic, raising it to SYP 2,500 ($0.17).

Passengers have little recourse. Using a shared taxi as an alternative costs SYP 15,000 ($1) per person, an unaffordable expense at a time when the minimum wage is around SYP 278,000 ($19) a month. The minimum estimated cost of living for a Syrian family of five, meanwhile, is SYP 8.1 million ($551). 

In July, Ahmad’s daughter was denied admission to a testing center because she “was 10 minutes late, due to the servees crisis and traffic,” the mother said. Her daughter, who studies at the Business Administration Institute in Mezzeh, will now be forced to take the course again next year.

Meanwhile, a waste crisis also plagues the city’s residents. Garbage piles up outside homes and shops after dumpsters are filled, prompting residents to throw their trash in the surrounding area. Hateful odors spread and stray dogs gather around. Sources complained that the trash is only taken away once every two days, even in densely populated areas or markets, despite the need to do so daily. 

Read more: East Aleppo: Years of ‘deliberate’ neglect and poor services

Garbage collects in and around dumpsters in Moadamiyat al-Sham, Reef Dimashq, 16/8/2024 (Kanana Suleiman/Syria Direct)

One day in August, Muhammad Taghlib (a pseudonym), 40, arranged food items on the shelves of his small shop on al-Zaitouna street. Finishing, he asked his sons to gather boxes and garbage accumulated on the sidewalk outside and throw them in an abandoned area nearby. 

“In the morning, you see piles of garbage bags to the point that you can’t see the container, which has disappeared,” Taghlib, who has lived in the city since the 1990s, said, describing services as “nonexistent.” 

There are only two dumpsters on al-Zaitouna street, where Taghlib’s shop is located. He has complained to the Moadamiya municipality to add more, “but we haven’t seen any response,” he said, adding the city has suffered from poor services “for years.” 

The state of services in Moadamiya is particularly notable compared to its neighbor, Jdeidat Artouz, about six kilometers away, Zain said. “All the neighborhoods and streets of Jdeidat Artouz are clean.”

“I don’t know if these circumstances we’ve lived in for years are real,” that is, due to an actual crisis in the country as a whole, “or if they are contrived and deliberate,” he said. 

This report was originally published in Arabic and translated into English by Mateo Nelson.